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2011-08-31 - Hot Cocoa and Good Friends
It may seem strange that two of the wealthiest women in the city chose to live together, even in a spacious, luxury penthouse apartment. Sometimes, however, rooming is as much about company as it is convenience. "I'm working on a project that is taking up all of my time." Janet mimics Tony Stark as she unlocks the front door. "I had to resist the urge to ask if his project was a red-head or a blonde." Susan lets out a soft peal of laughter at that, shaking her head. Only Jan can make her so relaxed that she would laugh so easily, so openly. That is one of the reasons they room together. For Sue, anyway. "I think the project might be a new aerospace bodytype. He had actually been investigating crack testpilots. He brought up my brother." But she's still laughing inside as they slip through the door and close it. She won't complain about the stiletto heels 'Designer Janet' insisted on to go with the amazing gown for the evening, but she doesn't hesitate to reach down and slip them off as soon as they're inside, either. "And you? Shameless as always. You are a far better flirt than I." "You just need to learn to let go and have fun." Jan says with a laugh. "Hmm. Aerospace bodytype. Maybe the project has purple hair and is an alien hottie." She traces the outline of an extreme hourglass with her hands. Then? Jan takes off her own heels. She loves shoes but even she has a tolerance limit when it comes to stilletos. "Just hang the dress up. I'll have on of the interns take it to the cleaners tomorrow." Susan laughs at Jan, shaking her head. "You and Aurora would get along famously, I imagine. She would agree with you." But who is Aurora? Mmm. Sue is leading up to something, dropping the name on purpose. But she giggles at Jan's joke about Tony and the purple-haired alien girl "So bad." The blonde does as directed, making her way barefoot towards her bedroom as she twists about and unfastens the few buttons, clips and tiny zipper that hold the dress fully closed. By the time she reaches the bedroom closet, she is slipping out of the dress, hanging it up on the 'SD'-styled hangar dangling from her closet door. Then she takes a turn in front of the mirror, lips pursed. A few minutes later and Susan emerges from the bedroom, wrapped in a blue silk robe and heading for the kitchen. "Did you want anything to drink? I was going to make some cocoa." Another subtle 'I was planning to talk' cue. These two almost have their own language. "Cocoa sounds perfect!" Janet says as she walks out of her bedroom dressed in a similar robe, though her's is a bright canary yellow. She also took a moment to remove her makeup with the specialized attractor wand. The tri-dots went back into their little container to sleep for the night and recharge. "I could use something warm. They had the air conditioning in that hotel up WAY too high." Of course, Susan never actually re-applied her makeup after removing it in the brief demonstration to Tony Stark at the party. The blonde glances over her shoulder at the yellow-clad brunette. "Maybe they were just worried about you starting a fire with all those poor businessmen. You're always such hot stuff." Yes, Susan can tease. But honestly, only very close friends like Jan, and she usually only tries to do so in private. It's all part of who she is. "It was rather chilly, though." After a bit of puttering, Sue emerges from the kitchen with two steaming mugs of hot cocoa on a small stray, along with a little serving dish with tiny marshmallows, and makes her way towards the sofa in the 'living room' space in the large open main room of the penthouse, where they can settle in and watch the night lights, or turn and watch a movie on the television. "I think the conference went well, though. Interest seemed good, especially after our demonstrations. Not everyone was as open as Stark, but lots of folks were paying attention when he asked questions." "Good. We don't need investors and the guys who are mostly social media won't be immediately helpful..." Jan says as she settles down, "But Amazon and a few other shopping sites were there and we'll want to make deals with them." She picks up her cocoa and adds several marshmellows. She sips and then settles back. "Aaaaah. So... what's his name? Someone's got you flustered." Susan has added marshmallows to her own, as well, and blows over the lip to cool down the cocoa just a bit before taking a sip, giving a little sound of pleasure at the warm taste flowing through her. Then her eyes flutter open, staring at Jan, before she laughs outright. "His name? Seriously? Oh, Jan. If only!" Yet she seems amused, not upset, by her friend's assumption. "Something does have me flustered, though." Truth. These two have long since passed the foolishness of ever keeping secrets from one another. "The other night, when you had to go to that meeting for your father's estate?" Susan mentions, as she shutters her eyes again, sipping on the cocoa as she lets her mind drift back to the night in question. "I decided not to sit here alone. I was already dressed up to go, so I went to the karaoke bar anyway." Of course, Jan knows Sue has a lovely voice. She also knows Sue has no confidence in her voice whatsoever. Her blonde friend as likely never left her table to sing all night long. That would be just like Sue. "You went without me?" Jan asks, "Color me surprised. I mean, I can see you going to the theater without me or a movie or something but going to a karaoke bar? Please tell me you had enough to drink to relax you and got on stage!" She turns her full attention to Sue. Which means turning her body toward her friend. You see? This is why Susan thinks Jan and Aurora would get along so famously, as they clearly ascribe to some similar ideas of 'what is good for Sue'. But the blonde shakes her head a bit, making a ruefull face. "You know me. I don't like drinking much. So I spent most of the night sittnig alone, just enjoying the ambience and the music." Yep. That sounds like Sue, to a 'T'. "There was this one woman. A lovely, vivacious brunette. She had quite the stage presence. After she finished her second song of the night, she sauntered by and sat with me. Her name was Aurora." Ah! At last, mention of this mysterious Aurora. Sue smiles. "She wanted to know why I hadn't gotten up to sing. Then I told her about having arranged to meet you, but you had to beg off. I told her a bit about the company. She's apparently a dancer for some place called the 'Hellfire Club.'" Susan has of course never heard of the place. "She was pretty unimpressed with us as 'science geeks', until I explained that you were also a fashion designer. And I told her about Butterfly Wings. Even demonstrated a bit. She was sold in a hurry. She even asked if she could buy some, and show it to her friends, other dancers at the club." That would explain many of Susan's earlier comments about a 'unique small sales opportunity.' That kind of a targeted sale could put the name and possibilities of the product out in front of the public in a major way. But none of this yet explains what is still making Sue nervous. "Oh, the Hellfire Club. I'm a member of that. Well, my dad was so I have a membership. I don't go very often, though. It evolved from a gentleman's club for the wealthy way back when in Victorian times. A lot of members still dress that way when they go. Its co-ed now but..." Jan shrugs. Then she adds, impishly. "You realize this Aurora is a stripper, right? And her friends at the club are also strippers?" "She wondered whether or not you might be a member. I told her I didn't know." Because Susan didn't know. She's not quite 'from money' the way Janet is, hers having come more from the fact that her mother died so young, and all of her father's properties were liquidated when he was taken away to prison. 'New money', and not huge gobs of it. Sue's big income chunk for their founding investments came from her share of the very substantial X-Prize the group won, together with some very smart - Janet helped, naturally - investments of those moneys. Sue blushes, but she nods when Janet mentions Aurora and the other dancers being strippers. "To be honest, I did guess that must be it. I couldn't imagine some club actually paying a staff of professional ballroom dancers." Possible, but unlikely. Sue may be niave, but she's not stupid. Far from it, of course. "Anyway, between that and her comments about 'costume changes between sets', I figured it out. But if she's right about the clientele, and that they really are co-ed now, it could still be a big opportunity." Susan sobers up, then, sipping at her cocoa. She still hasn't gotten to the part that got her, Janet can tell. "Then she just made up her mind, and grabbed me. Dragged me to the stage, to perform. She was ... a force. Not unlike you sometimes." But Susan loves Jan for that part of her. She also has known Jan for years and trusts her implicitly. Not so much, a dazzling stranger. "She dragged me up on that stage, under those lights ... and I panicked." Her face falls. "I faded out, right in front of everyone. So I ran." Oops. Jan opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Closes it again. Then she sets her cup of cocoa down on the coffee table and breaks out into giggles. Giggles and more giggles. She giggles for a good minute or two before calming down enough to say, "You went invisible... on stage... because you... stage fright... oh... Sue..." She laughs. "This girl must have been something if she got you on stage to begin with." As much as part of her rather expected this reaction, Sue's first expression is a hurt one, when Janet falls into fits of laughter at her predicament. She knows Jan means no harm in it, and that it /is/ funny, from any perspective /not/ her own. Eventually, she even joins in, with a smirk if not gales of laughter. "Yes. Me. Stage fright. I fought it, hard. But I just couldn't stop it." And being unable to stop it, she then had to embrace it and use it to escape. Susan purses her lips and shrugs at Janet's assertion. "I suppose she was. Rather 'force of Nature', in a way. But the thing that has me worried is that she knows my name. She even has my business card." And now she knows Sue turns invisible. That is information that until this moment was only held in five hands in the entire world - the other three from Susan's X-Prize team, and Janet herself. It is information that, if it got out, could change /everything/. And not in good ways. "Well." Jan says, "If she's at the club I'll go find her. Get a feel for her. Decide what we need to do in order to protect your secret. Some people are opportunists. Some people are good souls. We'll see." She picks up her cocoa and nods. This is a more serious matter. "Worse comes to worse, we can add her to the payroll as a consultant of some kind. You're right. There's a huge field out there for us in live entertainment, from theater to more... sensual arts." And of course, Janet doesn't miss the opportunity to get Susan blushing again. Sensual arts indeed! "Alright, then. I'll leave it in your capable hands. And I'm glad you don't think the business end of things was a stupid idea." Not being the businesswoman of the pair, Susan knows sometimes what she thinks should work is not practiceable. She's glad to know such is not the case here. "I did tell you about last week, right? Running into Liberty Belle was interesting." Then again, Invisible Woman has never really /talked/ to anyone before. Sure, Janet designed a costume, but the reason for the name is that Sue makes it a habit to operate invisibly as much as she can manage. Sentinels and the like cannot hunt what they cannot see, after all. Well, most of them can't. Some of them? Who knows. "You did. She sounds intriguing. I'd love to meet some more costumed folks. I just prefer to do it on my schedule and without someone breathing down our necks and telling us what to do." Jan picks up her mug and takes another sip. "So, that was a pretty glowing description of this Aurora chick. Does someone have a crush?" "Oh, so would I." Susan insists. She has no desire to be forcibly recruited, or worse. She has no intention of giving up the rest of her life to take on 'heroing' as some kind of duty. Even if it /is/ a duty, of a sort. Susan's quiet introspection on that topic, and her sipping of cocoa, are both interrupted by Jan's decision to prod so indelicately about Susan's thoughts on Aurora. The blonde blushes a bit and sputters. "Oh, you! You're awful, you know that?" she makes a mock-swat at Janet in 'protest' of the other woman's need to push her buttons. "When you meet her, you'll see what I mean. They were the best words to describe her." And she means it. But still, she adds after a long pause, sipping her cocoa until it is gone, "Truth is, the thing that struck me most about her was that she was a lot like you, in a spirited sense. Not your brilliance, or your culture. Or our long friendship. But still, kindred spirits." Like a taller Jan, though Susan would never put it that way. Not quite. "So... sexy and outgoing but not as smart or classy. Good. I've got to have something on the other women out there." Jan winks and mmms and leans back, taking the time to sip on her cocoa and chew on a mini-marshmellow or three. "I'll go find her tomorrow. Shouldn't take too long if my boss will give me some time off at work." Susan bahs softly at Janet, shaking her head a bit. "You are plenty sexy, Janet van Dyne, stop fishing for compliments." Jan may have been fishing, but it is Susan who sprang at the bait. "As for 'your boss', that would be you, silly." Granted, Jan knows that, so she said it to be a joke. And there, the tension of the moment is broken easily with laughter. Nothing at all to fear here. "Well, and you. You DO own half the company." Jan points out to Sue. "Honestly, I don't have too much to do right now. We've been feeding the rumor mills about Butterfly Wings. The big thing will be the product launch next month and all the arrangements have been made." Susan merely rolls her eyes. "/You/ are the CEO, Janet. You can take the day off any time you like. You don't need my permission. But if you want it, you have it." She is very proud of her best friend's talents and achievements for the company, and for herself. Jan laughs at that. "True. Still doesn't mean I don't answer to the investors. By which I mean myself and you, of course. And since I always answer to myself that just leaves you." She winks and finishes off her cocoa. "Mmmm." Susan smirks and winks at Janet. "The cocoa hit the spot. Warm, sweet and yummy." And it served as sufficient verbal lubricant to get them talking despite Sue's discomfort with some of the matter at hand. "I know I said it already, but it bears repeating: the dresses tonight were amazing. You really are an awesome designer, Jan." "Those were last year's designs. Wait until you see what I come up with this winter." Jan does most of her designing during the winter months, when she's forced to spend more time indoors because of the weather. It also helps fight the winter blues. "I'm sure I will be just as floored and amazed this year." Susan does love having Janet the amazing fashion designer in her life. She never could have imagined dressing so well. And Jan always seems able to make Sue feel so pretty. It's nice to feel pretty, rather than just be /told/ she looks it. Category:Logs